President Obama, Vladimir Putin meet, talk, disagree

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he met with President Barack Obama on Friday morning in what was a “warm” and “constructive” conversation, but they still disagree on military intervention in Syria.

“We listened to each other, we heard each other. I didn’t agree with his argument, he didn’t agree with my argument. We heard each other,” Putin said, through an English translator at a press conference at the conclusion of the G-20 summit with international journalists.

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Obama greets Putin at G-20

G-20 summit

After a 20-minute discussion, Putin said the two leaders agreed to have their foreign ministers, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Secretary of State John Kerry, discuss the issue with each other soon.

He also said National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden was not mentioned.

Putin said the G-20 leaders discussed the situation in Syria for the “entire evening” on Thursday night, until early in the morning Russian time, and the leaders were split. He reiterated the Russian position against military intervention, saying military force is only legitimate in self-defense or with a mandate of the United Nations, and the United States has neither justification.

Putin also dismissed the notion of the Syrian regime using chemical weapons against its own people, saying the chemical weapons used were a “provocation” on the part of militants to win support for their cause.

He warned that with potential negative consequences for the global economy, Syria has to be handled carefully.

“It is counterproductive to destabilize the situation in Middle East,” Putin said.

Citing public opinion polling, a message from the Pope and the many countries at the G-20 that were against Syrian intervention, Putin said the majority worldwide was against intervention.

Regarding Snowden, Putin repeated that his arrival in Russia was an “accident.”

“We did not invite him here and he intended to go to Latin America and he would have done so but for your fellow countrymen,” Putin said, adding the United States diverted the plane of the president of Bolivia and they could have done the same to an airplane carrying Snowden.

“They had to intimidate everybody. What did they expect to happen without an extradition agreement? They expected us to extradite Snowden unilaterally? No. He has not committed any crimes on our territory,” Putin said.

Putin blamed the U.S. for the lack of an extradition agreement, saying it refused to sign such an agreement because it doesn’t want to turn over “full-blown” Russian that didn’t create “some shady crime like revealing information.”